The Bozo Porno Circus Diaries: Thursday, April 24, 2002

If you never saw a Bozo Porno Circus show then you just plain missed out. The Tone Zone Records band was a freakout and a half, stuffed to the wall with loud noises and pretty girls getting sparks shot off their metal-covered crotches by belt sanders. Recently, lead guitarist Chris "The" Lane (aka Crispy and, for a brief hilarious time, Nikki Wykkid) uncovered a treasure trove of tour diaries and photos, so in the next few days we'll be heading down a well of Houston-flavored debauchery from the glory days of Houston's goth scene. Here we go:

Today we drove to Indianapolis, and arrived at Birdies early in the evening. When your industrial/fetish rock band is playing at a venue called Birdies, that's probably not the best sign possible, but the club itself looked pretty decent. Kind of a generic, medium-sized music club with sports bar leanings.

It was the sort of place that some sad version of Warrant might play at.

I had hopes that the show would be well attended, but was also worried, because from my experience our core fan base of gothic and industrial club people tended to be wary of venues like Birdies -- perhaps the Budweiser posters featuring bikini models frightened them or something.

We got our sound check done on time for once, but by the time we were done there were already a few people filtering into the club. I was almost immediately approached by a blonde goth woman who let me know in very direct terms that she admired me.

She was nice and not too pushy, but I decided to hide out backstage until the show. Since we had such a developed image, I always felt like it looked kind of lame to hang out in the club before playing. It sort of blows your image if people see you nursing a beer in your street clothes.

The show went really well despite fairly small crowd of maybe 60 people -- most of them were really into things, and the energy level was high. During our encore, the blonde from earlier and an attractive friend of hers got onstage to dance and play, while our girls electrocuted some goofy frat-boy type with their dreaded violet wand. It was essentially a small wand-shaped torture device, and reminded me of a cattle prod combined with a sex toy.

This show was also my first sighting of Afroman, one of our most dedicated fans. He followed us around the Midwest for that tour. I never really got to talk to him, but his persistence was admirable. After the show, the two girls that had joined us onstage asked the band over to their place for a party, but we ended up driving to our promoter's house instead.

I will say that while I often had offers from female fans while on tour, and got to know a few fairly well - Some becoming genuine friends over time -- I spent more time avoiding women than chasing them. I was certainly no angel, but being offered sex with someone that you just met, no matter how attractive they were, I always had to wonder how many other guys in bands received the same offer.

Plus, we were usually in such a hurry to move on after a show, and that it was logistically impossible to pursue that stuff without being a burden on the rest of the band.

Even when I wanted to, I generally couldn't go home with someone. I was in a strange town and the band was my only anchor. "I'll meet you later guys," was not a realistic option unless we happened to be staying in a city for several days, and that just didn't happen very often.

Our promoter, Pierre, was acting quiet and weird when we arrived at his house. I had heard from about a dozen people that he hadn't really promoted the show, and it's possible that he hadn't made as much money as he would have liked. Some of the smaller promoters were basically just people from the music scene trying to carve out a little power for themselves, and weren't very good promoters. They didn't treat their shows like a business.

It always amazed me that someone who would pay a significant amount of money to bring a band into town wouldn't spring another $30 on decent flyers. There were also times when we would go over to a promoter's house only to see stacks of our promotional materials sitting unused on their desk the day of the show.

The situation at Pierre's place was pretty grim. His wife wasn't happy to see us at all. We had stayed with them last year, and it was great. They both seemed to enjoy having the band around, and they had a large house with plenty of room. I got the feeling that they had probably been arguing, and our presence was not wanted.

I didn't want to deal with someone's unpleasant marital problems, and decided to just go sleep outside in the van, regretting not getting the blonde's phone number.

Others in our entourage must have felt uncomfortable too, because shortly afterwards Bambam and Rachel made their way out to the van. I actually slept well that night. Go figure. I could never properly sleep in our vans. I'm 6'4", and I could never contort myself into a small enough package to really be able to relax. I often had weird dreams when I did manage to pass out for a few moments. Dreams like this one:

There was a large round bed with a bunch of pillows on it, and I sat down on the edge. Some of my friends seemed to be in the area, and I was casually talking to them, when Max Power walked up with a couple of haggard looking dancer type women. He lay on the other side of the huge bed, and both the dancers started to give him a blowjob.

While this was happening, people we knew continued to speak to us, but Max didn't seem to realize that I was on the other side of the bed. Then it got worse. People began to walk up to where Max was having fun, and were hand feeding him strips of bacon.

Even while I was having the dream, I was thinking, "Man, this is really fucked up."

Finally, Max saw that I was sitting on the edge of the bed, and said, "Hey dude, why don't you get in that line so you can pass me some bacon."

Then, thank the gods, I woke up. With dreams like that, I'm surprised that touring didn't drive me over the edge.

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